I'm a plotter, hands down. It works well with my personality as I am very much a planner in my life. I plan my work days, my weeks, my vacations, my finances, etc. When it comes to writing, I at least need a loose plot where I lay out all of the beats for my story. Sometimes things change, and I need to reevaluate a plot point, but I have an outline for every book, and I add to it as I go.

What's happened for the two books I've written is that I started out with a basic plot outline, and then by about chapter 3, I add significant detail, planning down to each scene how everything is going to come out. My chapters tend to be on a the longer side, and usually by chapter 3, I know my characters really well and that makes it easier to plan out the rest of the book. When I do this, I rarely have writer's block because I can easily refer to my outline and know where I'm going. I also write in chronological order, and sometimes I have ideas I want to add back into an earlier chapter, but I try to do that on edit rather than interrupt the flow of writing the first draft.

When I first started my first book, I didn't do this, and for several months, I was stuck on the third chapter. Some of it was because it was a Christmas story and, once we left the Christmas holiday, I was no longer inspired to write it. But I think a lot of it stemmed from the fact that I hadn't planned out the plot. I didn't know my characters well at that point, and I was struggling. That was when I decided to apply to MFA programs in the hope that having deadlines for submitting pages would light a fire under me to write the rest of the book. It wasn't until #NaNoWriMo that I really felt that fire, but having deadlines helped. During November of last year, I spent some time plotting out the remainder of the book, and that made it so much easier to meet both the 50,000 word goal AND finish the book itself.

I know plotting doesn't work for everyone though, and many writers thrive on pantsing. I honestly envy them. The only time I've ever been able to "pants" anything is for short stories because I'm usually inspired by an idea and I just free write. For anything longer, I really need to plot it out so I can see a clear path to my destination and a general understanding of how I will get there.

What are you? A plotter, a pantser, or a plantser? Does it depend on what you're writing? Have you ever tried to force yourself to plot if you're a pantser, or tried to pants it if you're a plotter?

I know many writers suffer from various illnesses, both physical and mental. This week, my writing and work life were put on pause while I fought a frequent battle in the cooler seasons: chronic migraine. 

I'm not exactly sure when the migraines started, though I remember them mostly after giving birth. They've gotten worse in recent years. My doctor put me on a medication that helped at first, but then eventually stopped helping and between that and the side effects, I stopped taking it. Since then, I've started taking magnesium, which does help with the severity, but not the frequency.

There are many benefits to working from home during the Public Health Emergency (PHE), but I think the one I appreciate the most is the ability to flex out and lay down when migraine strikes. It's helpful when a migraine comes on during an afternoon meeting to know that I don't have a long, trigger-filled drive home to contend with and that I can immediately take a nap when I sign off for the day. But it doesn't make having one any less debilitating. 

What does this have to do with writing? Well, my migraines aren't limited to work hours for my day job, and there have been several times where my plans to write were thwarted by an attack. Even when I've tried to write through a milder incident, my brain is often too fatigued to make much sense on the page. My time is already limited by my job and my family obligations, so it can be extremely detrimental to my progress when I have an attack. I imagine others with chronic illness also struggle.

I wish I had some advice to give to my fellow sufferers, but I don't. I just try to take things day by day, listen to my body as much as I can, and pursue various relief remedies to either shorten the duration or lessen the severity. For me, it's helpful to know my triggers, but sometimes, attacks occur without warning. It can be incredibly frustrating when that happens if I specifically planned a day of writing around known triggers. But there's only so much I can do, and I have to remind myself some things are beyond my control.

Do you have a chronic illness? How do you cope? How does it impact your writing progress?

Today I want to talk about book titles. I've seen some on Twitter who are struggling with naming their #WIP and I myself have been struggling with the title of the book I just finished.

My first book I called "A Home for Christmas" and, while the title is pretty self explanatory, I've never not liked it. I've never wanted to change it, even though I know if it ever gets traditionally published, it will likely change. However, my second book has a title I don't love. It's called "The Winter Visitor" and it was inspired by the myth or legend that seeing a cardinal in one's yard means that a lost loved one is visiting. Lately, I haven't been loving this title. Over the weekend, I started brainstorming new titles, but some of the ones I loved, others didn't.

I thought "Cardinal Love" would be nice. It's sort of a play on two phrases: Cardinal Rule and Cardinal Sin. A cardinal rule is an unbreakable rule and cardinal sin could refer to one of the seven deadly sins or it could refer to a serious error in judgment. In my book, the two romantic leads were high school sweethearts. A character who is referred to in the book, but who the reader never really gets to meet, helped orchestrate their break-up. So, by combining the meanings of the two phrases, it kind of encompasses both relationships: their unbreakable love for each other and a serious error in judgment on the part of the character who broke them up. 

Some of my friends thought "Cardinal Love" sounded too much like "Carnal Love" which doesn't work for a sweet romance. Others thought using cardinal at all would signify a religious figure instead of the bird. One person suggested "Wings of Love" but unfortunately that phrase has been used in some way for over 200 books according to Good Reads. Maybe when I am ready to edit the book, I'll be inspired by a new idea. For now, I think I'll just continue to call it "The Winter Visitor" until I can come up with something better.

The next project I have, which I plan to start during #NaNoWriMo, actually has a name I currently love. It's "Down in the River Valley" and is inspired by a real summer camp that I both attended and worked at during my childhood and teen years. I'm planning to take a bit of a break from writing and editing to brainstorm and outline this new idea. I will return to editing my first book by the beginning of October so I can really jump into querying later that month.

How do you come up with your book titles? Do you find yourself changing the title often or do you typically stick with a title once you've come up with one?

Yesterday, I finished the first draft of my work in progress. I had a goal to finish it by the end of September. The plan was to work on the edits I had received from the developmental editor, critique partner, and MFA professor at the beginning of October, and then use the end of October to draft an outline for book three. Now that I'm ahead of schedule, I can choose whether to start working on edits now, or take a bit of a breather from writing/editing, since I've been doing a lot in the last several months. That is a very tempting option as we are moving into my favorite season, and my weekends may become filled with autumn activities like apple picking, renaissance faires, and the like.

I also might take a break from edits because some of the feedback I've received lately has really rubbed me the wrong way. Most of it has been constructive and helpful, but I think I need to put aside the criticism about my teen character, or at least, some of it. I agree with the advice that I need to make her more consistently a teen, but I disagree with the stereotyping about teens in general. Having a teen daughter myself, I don't think teens are as indifferent and self-absorbed as others appear to think of them. And even if they are that way in popular fiction, in the specific type of romance I am writing, which is heavily influenced by Hallmark movies, they aren't that way. To research how teens are in Hallmark, since many of the books I've read that they've published don't include children, I've started rewatching movies I know have teens in them. Besides being obsessed with their phones/social media, the teens in the movies are kind, considerate, and even the one that was portrayed initially as being dramatic/self-absorbed did care about her mother and the romantic love interest by the end.

As a fan of the show the Gilmore Girls, I also was using their close knit relationship as the basis for my mother/daughter relationship in my first book. I know the show is a bit dated as it's been off the air for a while and the Netflix miniseries wasn't as popular as some might have hoped, but I was surprised that my professor had never heard of it and that my editor didn't seem to grasp my aims. I also received feedback that the teen wouldn't be excited over little things, despite the fact that she's a "new" teen. My own daughter, who is fourteen and whom the character is heavily based on, does look forward to simple pleasures in life, like hot chocolate, chocolate chip pancakes, and holiday decorating, whether its Halloween or Christmas. And, again, the teens in Hallmark movies were similar. 

My second novel has no children in it as the characters are mostly in their twenties. When I edit it later on, I will have to make sure they are consistently portrayed as their age group, though I'm hoping that might be a little easier for me than the teen was. Overall, I think I like my second book more than my first. Not only has my writing improved, but I came up with the idea for this book all on my own. My first book, quite honestly, started out as a bit of a joke. My husband always says that Hallmark movies remind him of Mad Libs, that old game where you fill in adjectives and nouns and then it creates a weird story? I used a plot generator on Reedsy and it gave me two characters: a marine and a flight attendant. The rest I came up with on my own.

For the next day or two, I plan to bask in the joy of completing another book, and then I'll figure out when I want to dive back into edits on my first one. What does your editing process look like? How long do you wait between each editing cycle?

Over the weekend, I attended the Chesapeake Writing Workshop and I pitched two agents live. It was my first time ever pitching live, and boy was I nervous. Both agents were very nice and they both requested pages, so that definitely made me feel like I hadn't completely botched my pitch. While I'd never pitched live before, a writer's group I'm in has monthly calls where members of the group are chosen to pitch the agent of the month. Watching those calls at least gave me an idea of what to expect, although those are teaching calls, so the agents gave a bit more feedback than the ones I pitched to.

I'm not sure if I would do live pitching again, at least not this year. First of all, there's only a couple more of these writing workshops for 2021, and I'm not planning on attending the others. Secondly, while it was great to get an immediate response on a query, it was nerve wracking! But maybe by 2022 I'll be ready to do it again, and by then, I might have more than one book to pitch!

The agents couldn't be more different. One asked me questions specific to the book I pitched, but the other was more interested in career goals. This is the second agent I've queried who asked for more detail around my other projects. I like that many agents aren't just looking for a "one and done" book deal, they want to build a relationship with their authors. I have multiple sweet romances swimming around in my head and I'd love to work with one agent for the long haul if I can. 

Before the calls, I tried to go into them thinking of it like a job interview, but for my book. It was definitely over much more quickly than most job interviews, but it helped me to think that way because I've interviewed for jobs many times throughout my life. I'm someone who tends to only stay in a position for an average of 2-3 years before moving on. Looking back, I wonder if some of that is because I just have never found a job I truly love. I start out loving the position, but either I outgrow it or I just get tired of it. Sometimes I wonder if I should stop looking at government jobs and look for something in publishing, but I'm so far in my career now, I don't know that I'd want to start over like that.

The rest of the workshop was pretty interesting, although some of the speakers annoyed me, not because they gave poor advice, but just some of the personal commentary they provided.  I had previously attended their Colorado workshop, since they're all virtual. There's a lot of good information available, and I like that they send out bonus videos beyond the recordings from the current event. 

Did anyone else attend the workshop or one of their other ones earlier this year? Did anyone pitch live?

On Saturday, I saw many posts commemorating the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Mostly, people noted where they were when they learned the news. Several posts from friends discussed how they thought they were watching a bad movie on tv at first before they realized they were watching the news. Others remembered specific people who were lost that day, the heroes who died trying to save others. 

I didn't post anything related to that day because it's painful for me for reasons beyond the tragedy, and I didn't want to hijack the country's general grief over something not quite related. You see, for me, September 11th was a foreshadowing for me of what was to come in my personal life. My mother was working in DC during the attacks, and with phone lines being overloaded in the days before texting or Facetime, I couldn't reach her. I was down in Florida, attending my doomed first year of college. Eventually, my high school best friend was able to contact my mother and let me know she was safe. I think we finally spoke either late that night or early the next day.

For me, September 11th was the first time it really hit me that my parents were not invincible. It wasn't that I wasn't aware of our mortality in general. I'd lost plenty of friends and family, but I think sometimes as children, we think of our parents as a constant. As we get older, I think the realization that they aren't increases because we can see the impact of their aging more clearly. But as a fresh faced 17 year old (I have a late birthday) with a mother who was in her early 40's, I thought death was far off in the distant future. I expected to have many years with my mother. I was wrong.

One year, three months, and two days after September 11th, my mother died. The really heartbreaking thing for me was that I forgot all the fear and anxiety I felt, not knowing if she was alive or not, on 9/11. I remembered where I was, I remembered how dumbfounded I was watching the news, but I forgot that fear for my mother. So, when she was diagnosed with cancer, I just assumed she'd go through chemo and get better. She had surgery, and survived. She had a blood clot that went through her heart and put her in the hospital, but survived. Even when my father told me they had given her two months to live in October of 2002, I couldn't wrap my mind around the idea of her no longer being here. She was only 45.

To everyone who lost someone and to a country still healing from the tragedy, my heart is with you. 

Have you ever pitched to an agent live, either in person or virtually? I'm doing this tomorrow at the Chesapeake Writer's Workshop with two agents and I'm more than a little nervous. Thankfully, I've at least watched other people do this in a community I'm in that has an agent visit monthly where three people from the group get to pitch their books. So, I have a general understanding of how it will go, and this is a little less intimidating since it's just me and the agent instead of me, the agent, and 100s of my peers watching, commenting, and critiquing my pitch!

I think it's an interesting concept though because you can receive real time feedback on your pitch. If they request pages, you can hopefully rise to the top of their slush pile, and if they don't, you're not waiting weeks on end for them to reject your query (assuming they respond at all).

In addition to pitching, I also purchased a query review, which I received last night. It was interesting to me to see how different people teach query writing, which really demonstrates the subjectivity of the publishing world. Two things that my writer's group teaches were challenged in the query review I received: whether a logline should be included in the opening paragraph and whether a writer should note this is their debut novel. I, personally, agree with my writer's group. Loglines in the first paragraph feel jarring to write, and I imagine in many cases, jarring to read. I put my hook in my second paragraph, which begins my blurb. I also think it's good to tell agents this is your debut novel, which shouldn't be confused with "first" novel. Some writer's debut novel is really the 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. novel they've written, but the first one they successfully published. As many agents are actively seeking debut authors, I don't think it's a bad thing to say "debut.".

As with other critiques I've received, I made changes that I thought were beneficial and left the rest. I have received one full manuscript request and I have been sort of dipping my toe into querying for the last few months. I will get my developmental editor's comments back later this month and then I hope to start fully querying in October.

To everyone pitching tomorrow for the Chesapeake Writer's Workshop, I wish you the best of luck!

I took last week off from blogging because I was on vacation with my daughter. We went to the beach and had a blast! It was wonderful to have that time off from my day job, but I didn't take time off from writing. In fact, I wrote a lot more than I would have at home, likely due to the additional time I had. One day, I had nothing scheduled as they were calling for rain from the remnants of hurricane Ida, but it ended up just being overcast. Still, it was nice to have a day off to just chill. We stayed in, ordered food, and I wrote. It was also #PitMad, so I was able to write meaningful comments to fellow writers on their pitches, which I loved.

After 10 days off, it's back to the daily grind at work, but I'm still plugging away at my #WIP. I'm about 15k words from my goal, but I also realize it might not take that many words to finish the story. However, I'm the type of writer who wants to just get the story out, and then I go back and add in details later. With my last manuscript, my MFA program instructors really helped to flush out the details in their suggested edits, and I ended up with almost 90k words! I've since pared down that manuscript, but with that experience in mind, I'm okay if I don't actually get to 80k on this first draft. I know that by the time I've polished and edited it, I'll probably be there or over, but hopefully not over by much!

Today is also the first day of high school for my daughter. She's not thrilled, but I'm excited for her. I hated middle school and really found my people in high school when I joined the Theatre program. I'm hopeful she will have a similar experience. We both really struggled with her middle school for the last three years and I'm crossing my fingers things will be better this year. 

Now that summer is mostly over, I'm looking forward to cooler weather, apple picking, and other enjoyable autumn activities. What are you looking forward to this season?